Confrontation in the Pacific: why China feels surrounded by the US

The US maintains dozens of military bases in China's vicinity.

And there are more and more.

The situation in the region is coming to a head.

Munich/Beijing – Suddenly the danger was very close, it was hovering right over the heads of the Americans: in early February, a suspected Chinese spy balloon, the size of a skyscraper, flew over the United States.

The flying object, according to Beijing just a civil "airship" for weather research, was finally shot down off the US coast and is currently being examined by FBI experts.

In recent days, many Americans have realized for the first time that China may be far away, but Beijing's long arm reaches far into the United States.

On the other side of the Pacific, in the People's Republic, people have known this feeling of being threatened for a long time.

This did not require China's Foreign Ministry to claim that the USA had also allowed balloons to fly "illegally" over Chinese airspace.

One look at the map is enough for the Chinese to feel surrounded by the Americans.

Because for decades, the United States has operated dozens of military bases right on China's doorstep.

Like a barbed wire fence, the US bases stretch from South Korea to Japan and down to the Philippines.

Military experts speak of the "first chain of islands" (the "second chain of islands" is around 1,000 kilometers to the east and stretches from Tokyo to Guam to Papua).

USA and China: Tens of thousands of US soldiers stationed in Japan and South Korea

US dominance is a thorn in the side of military strategists in Beijing.

China's state media, such as the English-language propaganda organ

, speak of an "US attempt to contain China".

Because the military bases of the USA and its allies are blocking the Chinese from free access to the Pacific – as a look at the US locations shows:

• South Korea

  : The US has had a presence in South Korea since the Korean War, currently with around 28,500 troops.

  The number of US soldiers stationed in the country has been falling for years, although the threat from North Korea is still great: Kim Jong-un's dictatorship is arming despite UN sanctions, and the regime last carried out a nuclear test in 2017.

  
  
  

  There are repeated protests against US troops in South Korea;

  at the same time, the new Indo-Pacific strategy published by President Yoon Suk-yeol's government earlier this year calls for closer cooperation with the USA.

  China criticizes this "exclusive alliance" and demands that all countries in the region "should work together in solidarity for peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region".

• Japan

  : Around 50,000 US troops are currently stationed in Japan, half of them in Okinawa in the very south of the country.

  Part of it is to be converted into a kind of "rapid reaction force".

  Japan views China's increasingly assertive stance as its "greatest strategic challenge" of all time, according to the country's new security strategy.

  Tokyo therefore recently announced that it would be massively upgraded.

  In addition, the country is increasingly moving away from its pacifist post-war constitution.

• The relationship between China and Japan is chronically strained.

  For example, Beijing accuses the government in Tokyo of not apologizing for the war crimes that Japan committed in China in the 1930s and 1940s.

  There are also territorial disputes: Beijing claims the Senkaku Islands, which are controlled by Japan, under the name Diaoyu.

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Soldiers from the USA and the Philippines during a joint exercise (archive image).

©Rouelle Umali/Imago

Will the US intervene if China invades Taiwan?

• Taiwan

  : The US has no diplomatic relations with the government in Taipei, but has supported Taiwan with arms sales for decades.

  In addition, around three dozen US soldiers are stationed in Taiwan.

  China regards the democratically governed Taiwan as a "breakaway province" and wants "reunification" - if possible in a peaceful way, but if necessary also with violence.

  For Beijing, Taiwan is not only of ideal but also of strategic importance: Should China control the island, it would have unhindered access to the Pacific.

• It is unclear whether the US would support the Taiwanese government in the event of a Chinese attack: Washington is officially pursuing a policy of “strategic ambiguity” to deter China.

  Most recently, however, US President Joe Biden has repeatedly signaled that his country would intervene militarily in a conflict with Beijing.

• Philippines

  : In the South China Sea, off the coasts of Vietnam and the Philippines, China claims around 80 percent of the territory.

  It is also increasingly creating facts by depositing uninhabited islands and reefs throughout the sea.

  On the Spratly archipelago, for example, Beijing is expanding islets into military bases, ignoring an international court ruling in favor of the Philippines.

  
  
  

  In view of the increasingly aggressive behavior of the Chinese, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is once again increasingly approaching the USA.

  His predecessor Rodrigo Duterte had kept the former colonial power at bay.

  So far, Manila has granted the US access to five of its military bases.

  Four more are to be added soon, as US Secretary of Defense Austin and his Philippine counterpart Carlito Galvez agreed earlier this month.

  They also decided to resume joint patrols in the South China Sea.

  During a recent visit to Tokyo, Marcos Jr. also thought aloud about a joint defense pact with the two close allies, the USA and Japan.

China is arming itself - and provoking the Philippines

The USA and its allies still dominate the region.

But China is catching up and already has the world's largest navy.

By 2027, the 100th anniversary of its founding, Beijing's People's Liberation Army should have reached "world-class level", according to party leader Xi Jinping's goal.

Meanwhile, tensions in the area are mounting.

Just a few days ago, the Philippine Coast Guard reported that a Chinese ship had blinded the crew of a Philippine patrol boat near the Spratlys with a "military laser light" and carried out "dangerous manoeuvres".

According to a US State Department spokesman, the actions of the Chinese "immediately threaten peace and stability in the region".

Just a few days earlier, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry had put very similar words into her mouth. She also spoke of a "endangerment to peace and stability in the region" - but meant the four new military bases that Washington will have in the Philippines in the future wants to use.

List of rubrics: © Rouelle Umali/Imago